Q239 How can I check if the browser is Opera and which version?

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Q239 How can I check if the browser is Opera and which version?

The developers of Opera made to decision to fake the Netscape browser so as to enable image swapping to occur. IMHO this was a bad move, as correctly written scripts do not check for the browser but for the image object.

Anyway the following script:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
document.write('<P>navigator.appCodeName = ' + navigator.appCodeName);
document.write('<P>navigator.appName = ' + navigator.appName);
document.write('<P>navigator.appVersion = ' + navigator.appVersion);
document.write('<P>navigator.userAgent = ' + navigator.userAgent);
//--></SCRIPT>

returns on Opera 3.1:

navigator.appCodeName = Mozilla
navigator.appName = Netscape
navigator.appVersion = 3.0
navigator.userAgent = Mozilla/3.0 (compatible; Opera/3.0; Windows 95/NT4) v3.1

Therefore to check if the browser really is Opera and not Netscape try:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Opera') > -1) {
    version = navigator.userAgent.substring(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('v'));
    alert('You are using Opera version ' + version);
}
//--></SCRIPT>

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